Product Description

Winner of a 1991 Christopher Award

Winner of the 1991 Boston Globe Lawrence L. Winship Book Award

This collection of poems by Mary Oliver once again invites the reader to step across the threshold of ordinary life into a world of natural and spiritual luminosity.

"Oliver's poems are thoroughly convincing—as genuine, moving, and implausible as the first caressing breeze of spring."
-The New York Times Book Review

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #25409 in Books
• Published on: 1992-04-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 80 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780807068113
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Library Journal
In her seventh book, Oliver--Pulitzer Prize winner for her 1984 collection, American Primitive ( LJ 2/15/83)--carries readers into her vivid landscape and involves them in her process of discovery and recognition--from the tiny white spot in the distance, to the realization that it's a bird, to the name and song of the bird. This is a poet who rhetorically asks: "how could there be a day in your whole life/ that doesn't have its splash of happiness?" Lyrical lines move gracefully across the page as the spirituality mounts. One is tempted to call these poems too "poetic" or "romantic," but Oliver does not avoid nature's cruelty. With original, compelling vision, she discovers the same "splash of happiness" in the snow shining around a beggar boy or the smile of a woman cleaning toilets in Indonesia. Recommended.
- Rochelle Ratner, formerly Poetry Editor, "Soho Weekly News," New York
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
The Buddha's Last Instruction
Crows
Death At A Great Distance
The Deer
Everything
Finches
Fish Bones
Five A.m. In The Pinewoods
Foxes In Winter
The Gift
The Hermit Crab
Herons In Winter In The Frozen Marsh
How Turtles Come To Spend The Winder In The Aquarium, ...
Ich Bin Der Welt Abhanden Gekommen
Indonesia
The Kingfisher
The Kookaburras
Lilies
The Lilies Break Open Over The Dark Water
Little Owl Who Lives In The Orchard
Looking At A Book Of Van Gogh's Paintings, ...
Looking For Snakes
The Loon On Oak-head Pond
Maybe
Moccasin Flowers
Nature
The Notebook
The Oak Tree At The Entrance To The Blackwater Pond
Pipefish
The Ponds
Praise
Roses, Late Summer
Serengeti
Singapore
Snake
Some Herons
Some Questions You Might Ask
Spring
The Summer Day
The Swan
The Terns
Turtle
What Is It?
White Owl Flies Into And Out Of The Field
Wings
Writing Poems
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

Review
"Oliver's poems are thoroughly convincing--as genuine, moving, and implausible as the first caressing breeze of spring." -The New York Times Book Review

Customer Reviews

"Wake up!" is the tender, fierce cry of this book...
I've read just about everything that Mary Oliver has written...and something about "House of Light" makes me sit up and LISTEN to the natural world. These poems -- I think especially of "The Kookaburras" -- invite us to become more accountable for every thought, action, and gesture. Mary's poems break my heart open again and again; they're soul-food for me; they remind me of what is essential. Mary is a compassionate witness for the exquisite minutae of life.

An aide to see the world in a deeper reality.
The poems bring us close to nature and enable us to create a link of awareness that is sometimes soft, sometimes shattering. We are connected closely to the animals and birds - "The Kookaburras" made me cry. The reality of death is treated in a way that makes us pay attention and live NOW and know that when we are enveloped by that vast darkness, as everything eventually is, it will be alright.

Illuminating!! Oliver is brilliant...
After reading "House of Light" by Mary Oliver (the book was a gift for my sixteenth birthday a few years back) I began to write. It is inspirational ! Oliver captures the essence of each animal, plant, and situation. My personal favorites are: "The Buddha's Last Instruction" and "The Hermit Crab" The book is refreshing and a must have for poetry lovers!